CAREER OF DUNEDIN AIRMAN

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 118, 12 February 1940, Page 5

CAREER OF DUNEDIN AIRMAN

Instructor In England

TRAINING SQUADRONS NOT ALLOWED TO FIGHT

Dominion Special Service.

DUNEDIN, February 10.

Typical of the progress of many young New Zealanders who have left the Dominion to serve in the Royal Air Force is the experience of Flying Officer Richard G. Maddox, son of Mr. and Mrs. 11. G. Maddox, St. Kilda, Dunedin, who began his Hying career by winning mi "Otago Daily Times” Hying scholarship and is now an instructor in bombing at a training school in Shropshire. Flying Officer Maddox went to England in August. 193 i, and has followed his initial success by rapid progress in the two years and a bait lie lias been in the Royal Air Force. Before lie left Dunedin Flying Officer Maddox, who is just 2G, served his time as an engineer at Hillside, and as lie had always been keenly interested in aviation, lie had a good grounding for the career he chose. For the first year after be joined the Royal Air Force he followed the .normal training course, and then, like not a few other New Zealanders before and since, the ability he displayed caused him to be singled out for an instructor's post. For a year be was a dying instructor, but during tlie past few months be has been engaged in an advanced training squadron in Shropshire as an instructor in bombing and air-gunnery. Work Speeded Up. According to his.most recent letter to his parents, Flying Officer Maddox has been instructing in Airspeed Oxford planes, twin-engined trainers which are also used for advanced training in New Zealand. His previous training included experience in Avro Anson coastal reconnaissance bombers, which are used in large numbers by the Royal Australian Air Force. Since the war began training has been speeded up. he said, and the work of the instructors Iras increased a good deal as a result.

Special conditions naturally apply in war time, but one of the most difficult, Flying Officer Maddox said ii: a recent letter, was that training squadrons, jeveu if enemy planes came in sight, could not go up and engage them. Even if pilots were actually on a training flight and were gaining experience for such au occasion, their instructions were to make for the bills, as training planes could not hope to put up any sort of a fight against modern, high-speed bombers sueli as those with which the Germans have recently been raiding the British coast. How a difficult situation could arise in such circumstances is illustrated by the experience of a trainee pilot who was cruising above tlie Firth of Forth on the day Hie Germans chose for their first raid there. Before lie knew where he was there was a tight going on all round him between German bombers and British fighters, and if lie bad not: had a cool enough head to put his machine into a spin and dive well out of range he might have come to a very sudden end without (he means of defending himself.

Intricate Instruction.

Flying Officer Maddox now has more than GOO hours’ flying to his credit, bur, as he has explained in his letters, the actual Hying is only a part of the instruction the young pilot receives. Navigation, night flying, blind flying and other subjects are all part of the course (New Zealanders, by the way. have a good reputation for map reading), and since the war began it has been necessary to give a good deal of instruction on such subjects as military law. The experiences of pilots who have been forced down or have landed by mistake in neutral countries emphasize the necessity for this. The increasing demand for instructors in the Royal Air Force and the magnitude of the Empire air scheme have made positions such as that which Flying Office? Maddox holds even more important than before, and it appears, according to advices received from bis parents,, that, lie will remain on the instruction side of the service indefinitely.